1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains in general to delivery of electronic content and services over a network such as the Internet and pertains in particular to a system supporting micro-payment mechanisms for the content and services.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic commerce on the Internet has become commonplace. There are many sellers offering goods and services via web sites on the Internet, and there are an even greater-number of buyers who purchase the goods and services. In many cases, the electronic commerce transactions involve physical goods. For example, many buyers purchase items such as books, compact disks (CDs) and DVDs via the Internet. Buyers can also purchase electronic content such as downloadable text and/or music and access to web sites that provide news or entertainment stories.
Most electronic commerce sites on the Internet use ad hoc purchasing systems. For example, a web-based music seller typically has a purchasing system that is valid for only that seller's family of web sites. Likewise, a seller of web-based electronic content, such as newspaper stories, typically has a purchasing system that is valid for only the web site providing the content.
Therefore, a buyer must establish an account and/or provide payment information to each seller that the buyer patronizes. These separate accounts are inconvenient to both the seller and buyer. The seller must maintain a dedicated account management and payment system. The buyer must establish separate accounts, and the attendant login and password information, with numerous sellers. Moreover, the buyer must engage in risky behavior, such as providing a credit card number to relatively unknown sellers, in order purchase items.
The problems described above are especially apparent if the buyer purchases relatively inexpensive items, such as newspaper stories that cost only a few cents each. These types of transactions are frequently referred to as “micro-payments.” The transaction cost for most payment methods, including credit cards, make the methods impractical for use with individual micro-payment transactions. Therefore, there is a need in the art for an electronic commerce system that supports micro-payments and other types of transactions, but does not suffer from the limitations described above.